3 weeks ago today, I was on the daunting stage at the Comedy Store talking about Emotion in Storytelling. Coronavirus was on people’s minds but in typical British style, and in a befitting venue, a few jokes were made to make light of the issue.
2 days later I was at the Digital City Festival talking about the ‘Power of Community’. I was in a place full of people talking, meeting, shaking hands and carrying on as normal. That afternoon, everyone received an update on their phones as Coronavirus was confirmed as a pandemic by the World Health Organization.
We were stood there in Manchester Central. The place that is now being re-purposed as a hospital for Coronavirus sufferers with upto 1000 beds.
This was all getting very real.
Everything in our lives began to change quickly day on day and, along with the rest of the creative industry and beyond, our calendar bookings began to evaporate.
One after the other, events began to get cancelled including talks, creative meet-ups and workshops I had planned with universities and organisations.
Our client filmshoots, photoshoots and other work projects were cancelled. One big project we had been working on for months was postponed indefinitely overnight.
Immediately, you are left with the prospect of no income… and, as the government locked down the UK more and more, no hope of booking in any other work in the near future.
Suddenly you are bombarded with brand and agency messages. Negativity. Warnings. Advice. Cancellations. Guides to WFH…
I deleted every single one as I felt overwhelmed by the whole situation. And, I didn’t want to add to the noise.
So I thought… what’s the best thing to do?
My conclusion… Nothing.
I stepped back for a week whilst staying indoors and doing some of my silly art for my Insta. I did the ‘Toilet Roll Kick-Ups Challenge’ and used the One Minute Briefs feed to cheer people up each weekday with fun briefs for subjects like card games, rubber ducks and even ‘create posters using a picture of a smiling dog’. I felt it was important to do these briefs to lift the spirits of the community, some of whom had messaged me feeling low about what was going on. That’s why, despite all that was going on, we showed our support to Action Happiness with an #InternationalDayofHappiness OMB campaign. A great show of positivity to one another that helped to strengthen our unity and resilience.
The heavily engaged spirit and community on show made me think that we can use this time of uncertainty and fear to send important messages out to the wider public at the same time as having fun and being creative.
So we ran briefs for:
#StayAtHomeChallenge:
Entries: https://www.facebook.com/pg/OneMinuteBriefs/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1444692935692784
Shortlist/Winners: https://www.facebook.com/pg/OneMinuteBriefs/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1446364712192273
#WashYourHands:
Entries: https://www.facebook.com/pg/OneMinuteBriefs/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1441183872710357
Shortlist/Winners: https://www.facebook.com/pg/OneMinuteBriefs/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1441754875986590
Scriba saw the briefs we were doing and got in touch to collaborate and respond to a call to action from Labour to Stop Panic Buying. The campaign featured in PR Week.
#StopPanicBuying:
Entries: https://www.facebook.com/pg/OneMinuteBriefs/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1450752391753505
Shortlist/Winners: https://www.facebook.com/pg/OneMinuteBriefs/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1450821181746626&__tn__=-UC-R
We also ran a brief for an initiative for an online pub called the Staying Inn. This was a fun project about bringing people together but with a serious underlying message to stay at home. We ran this in partnership with The Drum and the story was feature here.
‘The Staying Inn’ #StayHomeSaveLives:
Entries: https://www.facebook.com/pg/OneMinuteBriefs/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1449760978519313
Shortlist/Winners:https://www.facebook.com/pg/OneMinuteBriefs/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1450451435116934
Off the back of this brief, a certain Guinness ad that wasn’t a Guinness ad became a Guinness ad and went viral across the world with the stay at home message right at it’s heart. Brilliant work by @redballoonluke.
Here is the original OMB entry: https://twitter.com/redballoonluke/status/1242051833906040833
Featuring in:
https://www.adweek.com/creativity/its-not-a-real-guinness-ad-but-it-is-a-perfect-guinness-ad/
Guinness have since posted it themselves on all their worldwide channels. I was really impressed by their approach as they embraced the way it was created and shared full credit in their post. And, above all, this has helped to share a very important message with a huge amount of people globally.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-MnsR-jtMm/?igshid=3vd8l6y48md7
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=guinness&epa=SEARCH_BOX
Without forgetting other world issues, on Friday/Saturday we delivered a campaign with the WWF for Earth Hour that encouraged people worldwide to get creative and involved in the event at 8:30 pm Saturday. We asked the community to share their ‘lights-out selfies’ and we even set up our own mini-event on Houseparty.
#EarthHour Brief with the WWF:
Entries: https://www.facebook.com/pg/OneMinuteBriefs/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1454126338082777
Shortlist/Winners: https://www.facebook.com/pg/OneMinuteBriefs/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1454316871397057
And I think the most emotive brief of the week was a show of support for the NHS. We received masses of ideas that showed their appreciation and we made it even more engaging by running it with one of our other feeds Love Your NHS and our friends at NHS Million. I have since spoken to the NHS Comms team and we might be able to help get more positive messages out there in the coming weeks!
NHS #LoveYourNHS #StayHomeSaveLives #ClapForOurCarers:
Entries here: https://www.facebook.com/pg/OneMinuteBriefs/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1452699138225497
Winners here: https://www.facebook.com/pg/OneMinuteBriefs/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1455022117993199
As you can see, from taking a step back and having some fun, it has helped to galvanise the community and give them an outlet to be creative amidst all of the doom and gloom. This togetherness has inspired some incredible campaigns that have been overwhelming to the point where I am now receiving calls from the press and seeing the OMBLES gaining the recognition they deserve in articles across the world.
On a personal level, all of this has helped me immensely. Although it has become very intense and relentless at times, I have been kept busy with constant waves of positivity, powerful messaging and support through our social feeds. The support is nothing like I have ever known. Our following has risen by 2000 in two weeks and we are getting more and more people getting involved internationally. As you can see on the OMBLE map that my mum constantly updates.
As I live on my own in Manchester City Centre without a garden, I had been very worried at the beginning of this lockdown period but as the week went on I felt strangely at ease. This is very much down to the support of the community but also down to friends, team-mates and family.
During this time, the group chats have been on fire and making me laugh every day with constant updates, memes and general stupid content.
I speak to my family face to face more than ever through Houseparty. I’m even chatting to people I’ve not spoken to in years as people have more time on their hands and less pressure on their work.
There have been concerts played from rooftops nearby for all of the neighbours to get involved in from their windows and we all joined in with #ClapForOurCarers. Most of the time neighbours don’t speak to each other but now we have never been so united. The crisis has created moments of solidarity like we have never seen before.
We are now all in the same boat. All at home and all hierarchy goes out of the window. No longer is everyone trying to compete and out-do each other with the experiences they are sharing online. And more focused on creating places where people can get together online and create their own experiences instead. It’s a learning curve but amazing to see how quickly people adapt.
No longer is the ‘fear of missing out’ increasing everyone’s anxiety. Because there’s nothing to miss out on.
We are no longer all living in a social competition. We are using social media for good. Going back to the message I shared at the start about the power of emotion and community, it has never been so important to stick together and show we care for the sake of humankind.
In a very short space of time, people who have been forced apart have never been so close to one another.
When all of this is over, I hope that continues.